


bittersweet offerings

by damnspacebois (Race_Jackson23)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Cheating, M/M, this is s8 canon compliant, you were warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 06:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17482595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/damnspacebois
Summary: Shiro gets married and he’s happy, according to the pictures he uploads to his social media. When they meet again for Allura Day, it’s awkward, but as the years go by, it hurts less. Keith continues on as he always has.a glimpse into shiro and keith before shiro's marriage





	bittersweet offerings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryburlesque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryburlesque/gifts), [helahound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helahound/gifts).



> Yeah, this gonna hurt. Soz. Many thanks to [Cherry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryburlesque/pseuds/cherryburlesque) and [Lorna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helahound/pseuds/helahound) for betaing.

When he awakes the next morning, Keith’s mouth is dry and his head swims. It takes him a moment to realise where he is. First, it hits him how the bed at his back is oddly soft compared to his own hard mattress, the sheets silky on his calloused skin. Light shines through the window at a strange angle. From there he notes the ache in his body, the one that always means sex, and it’s that more than anything that has him turning his face to the side in dread.

Not that it helps.

The head resting on the pillows next to him sends ice down his spine. White hair tousled with sleep. A scar, faded pink, splayed across a strong nose. There, next to him, his closest friend sleeps on, unperturbed. Eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar, his peace would be infectious if not for the roiling of Keith’s stomach at the sight of Shiro lying there while he could still feel the after-effects of their night together.

It’s a blur in his dreams, an elusive shadow barely recorded. He remembers arriving at the bar Lance had booked with the rest of the stag party – Shiro’s buck’s party, comprised of all the closest friends he’d made over the years. He remembers the sinking feeling he’d felt when he realised he hadn’t known any of them, save the original paladins. Even the first few drinks are imprinted on his brain – courtesy of Lance and Pidge, respectively – though after that his memory is faulty at best.

Like the whisper of a forest, there’s another memory there, too. One in which he and Shiro sat close together, talking as they had when they’d once been lovers. They’d been well into the drink by then but there’d been a feeling in the air that pressed Keith to confess something he’d kept close to his heart for many years. And after that…

Keith sits up slowly. The thumping in his head makes it difficult to concentrate and he feels even more like vomiting, but he can’t stay in that bed any longer. Not naked like he is – not with Shiro similarly indisposed. Merely thinking of it makes him feel sicker, and it propels him into his jeans and out the door into blinding sunlight.

They’re lucky their hotel rooms are next to each other, or at least Keith is. The pain in his head makes moving more than the ten steps required to his room near impossible, but to go even further would be more so. As it is, he barely makes it to the bathroom before he loses his stomach in the toilet.

“Keith?” someone calls, and with an internal curse hindered by his vomiting, he remembers that he’s meant to be sharing with Matt. “Keith, are you–? Ohh, clearly not, carry on.”

He’s thankful for that, thankful that its Matt and not, say, Lance or Hunk. With Matt, the chances of being questioned are far lower than if it were the former. It is not that the man doesn’t care because he does but, rather, that he knows when to shut up about something isn’t his business. It’s why they always get along so well.

It’s something that comes in handy later because Shiro comes knocking – of course, he comes knocking, they can hardly share a night like that without him coming knocking later. Keith’s still indisposed on the toilet at the time, vomiting his guts up in a way that would be spectacularly comedic if it weren’t so sad and indicative of his poor life choices. So it falls to Matt to deal with him.

“Sorry man,” he says. “He’s asleep and he needs his rest. Last night was _wild_.”

Keith can’t hear what Shiro says, but the door clicks shut a moment later and then Matt is at the bathroom door. Not a word is said. After a moment, he removes his head from the toilet bowl, meeting curious eyes with all the dignity he has left to his name.

That is to say, none.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he croaks out.

Matt shrugs, raising his hands in surrender, but murmurs, “He’s getting married.”

Keith knows. It’s why his head is in the toilet. He says nothing.

Before he shuffles out of the bathroom, Matt only says, “I’m here if you need me.”

And that was that.

Although Matt eyes him cautiously over the next few days, Keith’s sure that the whole thing is done with. Shiro keeps trying to meet his eyes, but he ignores it. That’s not much of a change from the past few years if he’s being honest. The others don’t even notice a difference between them. So really, that’s that.

At least when it concerns someone other than himself. Keith isn’t optimistic enough to think that he’s free of the whole matter. If he’s honest, he knows he’ll be enthralled by it, by Shiro, until the day he dies.

It had always been like that, even when he was just a cadet and Shiro his mentor. Back then, he hadn’t had the slightest chance with the man, too much of a child in his eyes to even be considered for romantic potential. Besides, Shiro had Adam back then, and it wasn’t really until after the Kerberos mission – or sometime after the battle with Zarkon where he’d disappeared, if Keith was being honest – that he’d even had a chance to see Keith in a different light.

But after he’d shown up, bedraggled and long-haired and unsettled – a clone, though none of them knew it at the time – something between them changed. More often than not, he found Shiro’s eyes following him, and before long he was following him with his whole body into whatever place they could screw quickly and quietly. It was good and they’d enjoyed themselves.

“Enjoyed” being far too light a term Keith, if he was being honest. He loved Shiro, was _in_ _love_ with him. And to him, the naïve boy who’d never been with anyone until Shiro, the fact that they were sleeping together, sharing their bodies with one another in the most intimate of ways, just meant that Shiro felt the same way. That they were meant to be together and nothing would tear them apart: not the Galra, not the war, not even two years in a space-time warp.

Or so he’d thought, because it turned out that Shiro wasn’t really Shiro and one stilted conversation about “going back to the way things were” was enough to stop it in its tracks. And that was after Keith had confessed his love for Shiro, so while the latter was kind enough not to throw it in his face, he knew what he’d really meant with the otherwise gentle rebuke.

_I don’t feel that way for you._

Shiro’s actions spoke for him plainly enough. He’d moved into the Green Lion and that was it. It was like they’d never been lovers in the first place, and until the night of the stag party, Keith deluded himself into pretending he was fine with that for years.

But now. Now, though he avoided him, there would always be a part of Keith that yearned for what he’d once had but never would again. Now, he’d never be able to avoid it.

It gets worse as he watches Shiro dress for his wedding. His wedding, of course, to Curtis, his boyfriend of two years and fiancé of four months. Keith’s stomach, never particularly strong in the face of Shiro loving someone else, practically revolts as shirts and vests are shrugged on and Shiro’s hair is gelled into place courtesy of Matt. But it’s as the pocket square makes it into his jacket that Keith finds he needs to leave before he does something monumentally stupid like throw up or proclaim his love for the groom.

“I’m going to wait outside,” he announces, and turns to leave.

“Keith,” Shiro calls out, and he stops. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the calculating look flitter across his handsome face before something becomes resolved and he motions to the others. “Can you all give us a minute?”

They do. Of course, they do. They file out, Lance and Hunk and Pidge chattering amongst themselves happily. Only Matt looks suspicious as he leaves, his mouth tight as if he wants to say something but thinks better of it, but then he’s gone and it doesn’t matter because it’s just Keith and Shiro then.

And he can’t avoid him any longer.

“How do I look?” asks Shiro, his voice soft and imploring.

And Keith – well, Keith could never deny him anything.

“Beautiful,” he says. Shiro’s ears redden. “You look beautiful. Your tie though–”

It’s crooked. Keith makes his way back across the room, not daring to meet Shiro’s eyes as he straightens it up. For the first time in days, Shiro’s watching him, but he can’t look back. He won’t.

But when it’s straightened, it’s like his hands move of their own accord. They hover above the lapels of Shiro’s jacket before resting gently on his chest, and is if this is the signal he needs, Shiro wraps his arms around Keith’s waist.

“Don’t,” Keith says softly, voice choked on the word. Though, he doesn’t move away. “Don’t.”

“The other day, I–” Shiro hesitates. “We should talk about it.”

That’s when Keith finds the strength to pull away. With a warning look, his fingertips just barely brushing Shiro’s jacket, he insists, “There’s nothing to say.”

“Isn’t there?” Shiro snaps. He runs his human hand through his hair, ruining Matt’s careful gel work. For the first time Keith’s seen since the war, he’s agitated. “We slept together, Keith! Don’t you think we should talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about?” Keith shoots back. There’s a hand around his heart that’s squeezing harder with every word that leaves Shiro’s mouth, because he’s not an idiot. Because Shiro’s getting married, and he tells him that.

A glint appears in Shiro’s eye and his expression changes. It’s not anything Keith’s ever seen before – not anger or guilt, but hope, or something near it. Keith’s heart stops.

“Unless,” Shiro says slowly, his eyes not leaving Keith’s, “unless you give me a reason not to.”

It’s everything he’s ever wanted, a bittersweet offering. Three little words and Shiro would be his forever, and for a moment, he considers it. He sees their life in his mind’s eye, sees a house and kids and a future, and for a second – just a second – he lets himself enjoy it.

But. 

Keith shakes his head and his hands, which had found themselves in Shiro’s, pull away.

“I can’t,” he chokes. “We can’t. You know that. If you were thinking rationally, you’d know that.”

“I am,” Shiro insists, stepping closer as Keith steps away, “I am. Keith, I lo–”

“No,” Keith cuts him off. “No, we had sex and now you think it’s something more–”

“It is! It is something more! I love you, I’ve always loved you, but I was too afraid of losing you to do anything about it.” A fire alights in Shiro’s eyes, dancing with fervour. “But I’m going to fucking lose you anyway, right? If I get married, I’m going to lose you, and I can’t – I can’t do that.”

Keith shakes his head again.

“Shiro, I can’t. I can’t. You asked me once to go back to just being friends and I didn’t want to but I was okay with that and I did it for you, but you can’t just turn around and take it back. It’s too late!”

“I can’t lose you, Keith!” Shiro shouts back, and then Keith snaps.

“You already did!”

 _Silence_.

Shiro looks as if his heart is being torn to pieces. Keith’s feels much the same but he continues anyway.

“You lost me when you wouldn’t speak to me.” Keith gulps, trying to force down the tears that spring to his eyes. He fails. “When you decided you wanted us to go back to what we were. And I– I can be there for you as your friend. I can. But I’ve spent so many years of my life chasing after you and having you tug me around and I– I can’t do that anymore. My heart can’t take it anymore! I deserve better!”

There’s a moment of silence between them. In it, Keith gathers the broken shards of his heart into a pile, wiping away the tears trekking down his cheeks. Shiro does the same, then nods.

“You’re right,” he says, voice cracking. “I’m being unfair. To you and to Curtis.”

“You are getting _married_ ,” Keith repeats, and Shiro visibly straightens and nods again. “Go get married, and be happy. Leave our past where it belongs: in the past.”

And that’s exactly what they do.

Shiro gets married and he’s happy, according to the pictures he uploads to his social media. When they meet again for Allura Day, it’s awkward, but as the years go by, it hurts less. Keith continues on as he always has.

 _Alone_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> rip sorry not sorry
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/damnspacebois) or 


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